The 2012 JJA Jazz Awards were given out on Wednesday; that link goes to all the winners. Congratulations to Marc Myers of JazzWax for winning Blog of the Year. If you read his work consistently, or explore his deep archive, you’ll learn a lot about music history. I was once again honored to represent NPR Music at the event, where A Blog Supreme was nominated, and once again was humbled to be in the presence of so many musicians, journalists and industry folks who inspire what we at NPR Music try to do.

A rather big story among the jazz community this week was the announcement that weekday jazz programming would be canceled at WGBH, moving long-time host Eric Jackson to the weekend and eliminating Steve Schwartz’s Friday show. Public radio news programming will replace it. A few different blogs rounded up the commentary among Bostonians and jazz radio folks. (Indeed, it was announced in the middle of the JJA Awards ceremony, to a collective gasp in the room.) Before this news broke, a St. Louis jazz DJ argued on behalf of jazz radio, citing “sources in the industry” that fewer than 400 jazz disc jockeys remain in the U.S. There’s a lot more to say about this but I’ll limit myself to one thought: It’s a sad situation that these two folks with huge ears who have dedicated their lives to jazz won’t be heard.

Explaining jazz to people who hate it, from Peter Hum/jazzblog.ca. Personally I think that people who don’t care about jazz represent a bigger issue than people who don’t care for it, but this is a passionate statement. Since it’s jazz festival season in Canada, related is a Canada.com assessment of the boundary-pushing artists who represent a “rebirth of the cool.” Or perhaps, aesthetically, there’s a ’70s kind of vibe to the proceedings?

Bassist Ben Allison, who also represents the Recording Academy (in charge of Grammy Awards), testified in front of U.S. Congress on behalf of performers’ rights and royalties. In the YouTube clip embedded there, he starts talking at 19:25.

Pianist Ethan Iverson is interviewed by Kevin Whitehead (who also serves as the jazz critic for NPR’s Fresh Air) for eMusic. They talk ’80s jazz records.

Boston jazz history: A new book chronicles the Beantown scene, 1937-1962. Brilliant Corners interviews the author.